Copious Love Productions brings a modern adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters to life, in the form of Taphouse, a new play by Washington playwright Kiki Penoyer. Masha Collins (Britt Hobson) is a talented aspiring singer/songwriter working in a dive bar in contemporary Bellingham with her stepsister Emmaline (Corinne Marie) and the bar’s owner Nellie (Karen Jo Fairbrook). Her pianist Felix (Justin Johns) has just met a conspicuously uncharming art student named Lindzey (Alysha Curry) and is attempting to woo her. While preparing for Emmaline’s surprise birthday party, Masha’s obstreperous brother Rooster (Tyler Elwell) arrives in army fatigues with his fellow soldiers Claude (Neil Hobson) and Liam (Chris Trover). Masha strikes up a romance with Liam around the idea that they will one day flee her dull life to California together, despite her already being married to Dr. Roger White (Tom Stewart). It’s a story filled with hope that oxidizes into despair, love that wastes away, and love that remains strong.
The play opens on Masha as she begins working with Felix on a song-in-progress, and boy can she sing. Hobson is a wonderful vocalist and a formidable lead actor, with a natural charisma that carries her easily through the narrative. Fairbrook, too, exhibits admirable ease on stage, along with Marie and Michael Ramquist, who beautifully portrays an affably drunk Muscovite stereotype named Harrison, who seems to be one of those bar regulars who eventually becomes one of the family. As the comic relief, Johns and Curry are wonderfully paired, with beautifully contrasting manners and personalities, and excellent chemistry, as much as two people can while playing a couple who will never, ever make it.
When the boys turn up, we are treated to Tyler Elwell’s immense handsomeness and decent acting chops, along with Trover’s high-dose drama, and Neil Hobson, whose character apparently can get so worked up emotionally that he becomes spontaneously British. (That is to say, the talented actor’s American dialect is very convincing, until it is placed under dramatic duress, at which point it dissolves like a sugar cube in a nice hot cup of afternoon tea.) And Tom Stewart is a dramatic powerhouse in everything he does, and his hair is so very stylish.
The entire play takes place in the same bar (Taphouse, the play’s namesake), and for anyone who has been into a PNW dive bar, it’s enchantingly familiar, replete with old posters and banners, Seahawks merch, and graffiti-covered chalkboards. Aesthetically, this production is perfect, with beautifully character-specific costumes that speak volumes to each personality and their context. The only criticism is that this play is a bit clumsily directed, with comings and goings that are at times almost farcically convenient, and a whole lot of standing-and-sitting-and-standing-again, such that the audience is frequently confronted with the fact that we are watching blocking, rather than the natural movements of humans in their habitat.
Still, with that singular complaint, it remains a great play. The script is hilarious in moments, combined with actors who know how to deliver comedy to a modern audience. Yet it is also highly compelling and devastating when it needs to be. Even as a highly sentiment-resistant audience member, I left the theater asking myself many of the questions that the characters asked themselves. I found myself questioning the direction I’m heading in, in my life. What happened to my dreams from years back? Can I still make them happen? What balance must there be between hanging onto people and letting them go? It left a profound mark on me, and for that reason I heartily recommend going to see Taphouse as soon as you can.
Copious Love Productions presents Kiki Penoyer’s Taphouse, directed by Jennifer Nöel Klouse, will run from June 5-20, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm at The Ballard Underground (2220 NW Market St). For tickets, please visit copiouslove.org